Betty MacDonald Fan Club. Join fans of the beloved writer Betty MacDonald (1907-58). The original Betty MacDonald Fan Club and literary Society. Welcome to Betty MacDonald Fan Club and Betty MacDonald Society - the official Betty MacDonald Fan Club Website with members in 40 countries.
Betty MacDonald, the author of The Egg and I and the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Series is beloved all over the world. Don't miss Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald biography and his very witty interviews on CD and DVD!

Vashon Island Bike Tree: The True Story

I've posted previously about the bicycle embedded in a tree on Vashon Island.
Yes, it exists. No, it's not photoshopped. Recently I've been getting a
zillion hits on the old posts on the blog because people keep posting
the picture on Facebook with some bogus story about a boy leaving his
bike in the woods and going off to fight and die in World War One, never
to return. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to see all the holes in that story.

Opinion: The new Donald Trump can beat Hillary Clinton

Trump’s makeover into a serious statesman will make him electable against unlikable Clinton

REUTERS/Jim Bourg

Republican U.S. presidential candidate
Donald Trump delivers a foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in
Washington on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – The making of a president 2016 has already begun.Republican frontrunner Donald Trump gave a major foreign policy address this
week with all the trappings of a commander in chief — American flags in
the background, dark suit with the stars-and-stripes lapel pin, white
shirt, red tie, and, wonder of wonders, a teleprompter to stay on
script.Trump, who is nothing if not a good performer, mostly pulled it off, prompting MarketWatch Washington bureau chief Steve Goldstein to comment, “Squint and you can almost see Trump speaking from the Oval Office.”

Renowned Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight
threw his support behind Donald Trump's presidential campaign, less than
a week before Indiana voters go to the polls in the state's primary.
Photo: AP

The makeover that began with
Trump’s uncharacteristically short and concise victory speech after the
New York primary is in full swing, with the aim of transforming the
rowdy, rambling brawler of the primaries into a distinguished statesman
capable of taking on the most powerful political office in the world.It could work. After
all, Theodore White’s best-selling “Making of the President” series,
which began with his chronicle of John Kennedy’s successful 1960 run,
soon became Joe McGinnis’s “The Selling of the President” about the
equally successful packaging and marketing of candidate Richard Nixon in
1968.And who is better at marketing and branding than Donald Trump?The
Democrats are in more trouble than they realize proceeding with their
rigged effort to crown Hillary Clinton as their nominee.Who really thinks it’s a good idea to field a candidate with that much baggage and with a 56% unfavorable rating?The Democratic Party bosses take comfort that Trump’s negatives are even higher, thus logically pointing to a Clinton victory in this war of attrition. But,
as Clinton herself constantly proclaims, she is the battle-scarred
veteran of the trenches, and her favorability ratings are likely to move
much more sluggishly.Trump is new to this game and his ratings
are more fluid. There is every reason to expect that as he pivots to a
new look and demeanor, his favorability rating will improve.As
for the content of that foreign-policy speech, the mainstream media
predictably found it “incoherent” and full of “paradoxes.” As if the
foreign policy followed by President Barack Obama and his erstwhile
secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, was a resounding example of
coherence.There is actually a good deal of internal coherence in
Trump’s analysis of America’s place in the world and his policies, and
it fits in well with the general themes of his campaign. Read the speech and judge for yourself. “America
First,” like “Make America Great Again,” has considerable resonance
with a wide swath of voters through any number of swing states that
Trump could well move into his column in a general election. (Sorry,
pundits, no one really cares if the expression was first used by Nazi
sympathizer Charles Lindbergh in the 1930s.)And let’s look at
the widely touted impact on the down ticket — that aversion to Trump
will swing a number of contested Senate seats to the Democrats and
enable them to regain control of the Senate while making considerable
gains in the House.That may be too optimistic, especially considering that the trend under Obama has been for the party to lose ground.Data from University of Virginia analyst Larry Sabato published this week in the Washington Post showed that Obama set new standards in this regard. Democrats
have lost a net 11 governorships during his tenure, as well as 13
Senate seats, 69 House seats, and control of 32 (!) state legislative
chambers — far more in every case than Republicans under that party’s
presidents and mostly more than other Democrats have lost.Why should Democrats gain under Clinton’s standard after she has wrapped herself in the “success” of the Obama administration?The
Democratic Party leadership is for the most part geriatric and
sclerotic, and even the feisty independent trying to win a new
generation to progressive policies is 74.Conceivably, Hillary
Clinton could do a pivot of her own and wholeheartedly embrace the
policies championed by Bernie Sanders, which have generated so much of
the energy and enthusiasm in the Democratic primaries.No matter
how convincingly Sanders endorses Clinton once she has actually won the
nomination, it is not his responsibility to keep that enthusiasm alive.

Carly Fiorina brings to the Ted Cruz campaign a proven
ability to go toe-to-toe with arch rival Donald Trump. Here are some of
the sharpest exchanges between Fiorina and the GOP frontrunner. Photo:
AP

The ability to generate
enthusiasm is nontransferable and if Clinton wants to keep those voters,
especially young people who would be voting for the first time, it is
up to her to motivate them to go to the polls.She has shown
little inclination so far to do that, apparently confident that she has
the “Obama coalition” well enough in hand to win the election and that
organization will do the rest.But it won’t be fear and loathing
of Trump that gets these young people to the polls. It is Trump who is
making the more successful opening to the center, with his support for
Medicare and Social Security and his opposition to trade pacts.He, too, could promise some relief for student debt along with his raising hopes of more and better jobs.These
young voters aren’t bogged down in the past. They don’t care if someone
calls himself a socialist, and they certainly won’t care that Charles
Lindbergh was the first to use the expression “America First.”Hillary Clinton, as Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger noted this week,
is much likelier to pivot now to the halcyon days of President Bill
Clinton, perhaps throwing Obama under the bus now that he has served his
purpose of winning her the nomination.But for many of these
young voters, the first Clinton administration is something they read
about in history books, and it would be hard to overestimate the degree
of Clinton fatigue among older voters.We’ll see who does a
better job of packaging and selling, but it would be premature to count
on seeing a second President Clinton

Betty MacDonald Fan Club proudly presents:

The
amazing, very witty, charming, intelligent story written by our
brilliant Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honor Member - artist and writer
Letizia Mancino.

Betty,
I love you! Your books „Anybody can do anything“ and „Onions in the
Stew“ are really outstanding! I take them into my hand, and at a stone's
throw I am right away in America ! Columbus and the egg: The great
discovery!

Your bestseller „The Egg and I“ the greatest
discovery. And you and I! I know America: It's true what you are
writing: That's America: Absolutely right! No, even to the least detail!
The landscape and the passion: Do you know the country where pistols
blossom? Brava, Betty, you are describing the Americans vividly,
genuinely, insufferably, brushed upon paper. If I like to read your
works? To read doesn't even express it! I can even hear and see
everything: Nature, culture, subculture.

America has almost
remained unchanged! O those cool Americans! Calculating, stockmarket,
Wall Street, the financial crisis (even back in 1930), the gamblers, the
bankruptcy of companies! The swarming of dodgers and cheaters. People
left without money. Dispair und hunger! A terrible „Worst Case“ (when I
knew but little English I thought it is sausage with cheese).

Still
how impressive is the ability to adaptone self of the Americans: They
know how to enjoy life, acrobats of survival! In the twinkle of an eye
they achieved to adapt themselves and effect the work of pioneers: In
the morning you are a cleaningwoman, in the evening a brothel woman! No
problem!

„The insufficient, here it's becoming an event; The
indescribable, here it's done;“ Mary Bard Jensen, your sister, was the
treasure trove of procuring work: My word, what a power woman with
unlimited imagination! She has recommended you everywhere: Betty can do
everything, also write novels! Go ahead, sister, hurry up! The editor
wants to see your manuscripts! Up to that point you had not written a
single line! Wow! And if still everything goes wrong? No problem: When
you dream, dream big!

Just look, you have become famous.The Egg
and I You know that, Betty? I'll slip into „The Egg and I“ and come and
be your guest! I want to get to know your chickens. I hate chickens!
I'm a chickens slave from North America! O Betty, without these damned
animals, no chance of you becoming famous! „The Egg and I“ you would
never have written! How many readers you have made happy!

Your
book is so amusing! Your witty fine (almost nasty) remarks about your
family members and roundabout neighbours made me laugh so much! You have
been born into a special family: Comfort was not desired: I can't but
be amazed: What did your father say to your mother? After tomorrow I am
going to work elsewhere: Thousands of miles away...He sent her a
telegram: LEAVING FOR TWO YEARS ON THURSDAY FOR MEXICO CITY STOP GET
READY IF YOU WANT TO COME ALONG – That was on Monday. Mother wired back:
SHALL BE READY, and so she was.That's America! Improvisation, change,
adventure. You show no weakness: Let's go! Your descriptions, Betty,
about the tremendous happenings in nature have deeply frightened me.

Continent
America, I'm terrified by you! I feel so small and threatened like a
tiny fly before an enormous flyswatter! Your novel is very many-sided!
The reader may use it even as a cook book! „The Egg and I“ starts
straight away with a recipe: „Next to the wisdom that lamb meat doesn't
taste good unless it has been roasted with garlic“. Do you enjoy the
American food?

O Betty, it's too fatty for me and I hate garlic!
(Betty is presently cooking lunch for Bob. She's continually talking to
„STOVE“: STOVE is Bob's rival; in the beginning I thought it was being
himself). She turns round and says: Well, so no garlic for you. No lamb
either, Betty. I don't eat any meat! I'd actually prefer only fried
eggs. Betty, let me make them myself. Then you try it!

Blow!
„STOVE“ out of order! I don't succeed in turning it on! Damned! It's got
more of a mind of its own than „STOVE“ of my friend, Hilde Domin! Bob's
coming! He must eat directly! „Men eat anything, the swines! Says your
grandmother Gammy“. Is it true? Do you like my chickens? Bob asked me
without introducing himself. Yes, Bob (rude) I love them! I'm
vegetarian. Do you want to clean the henhouse with me tomorrow? A,
you're always getting up so early at four o'clock! Bob, that's not a job
for me! He looked at me disdainfully! A Roman cissy! You need a
reeducation at once! Help, Bob's attacking me! I rather change the novel
immediately and move to the „Island“!

About Me

Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. His Interviews have been published on CD and DVD by Betty MacDonald Fan Club. If you are interested in the Betty MacDonald Biography or the Betty MacDonald Interviews send us a mail, please.
Several original Interviews with Betty MacDonald are available.
We are also organizing international Betty MacDonald Fan Club Events for example, Betty MacDonald Fan Club Eurovision Song Contest Meetings in Oslo and Düsseldorf, Royal Wedding Betty MacDonald Fan Club Event in Stockholm and Betty MacDonald Fan Club Fifa Worldcup Conferences in South Africa and Germany.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honour Members are Monica Sone, author of Nisei Daughter and described as Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, Betty MacDonald's nephew, artist and writer Darsie Beck, Betty MacDonald fans and beloved authors and artists Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Traci Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, music producer Bernd Kunze, musician Thomas Bödigheimer, translater Mary Holmes and Mr. Tigerli.